History How many of you grew up riding in the back of a station wagon?

My Dad had a grocery store, so we always had wagons. The first I remember was my dad had a 52 Dodge wagon and then in 1958 he bought a new Chevy wagon. When it was delivery time, I sat on the tailgate and ran the groceries into the customers homes. I learned to drive on that wagon when I was 15 and have loved wagons since. Even at my advanced age, I can parallel park a wagon far better then a sedan. His next wagon was a 62 Chevy which after borrowing weekends for two years to tow my altered, that old power glide had the biscuit. I am currently building a nostalgia Bantam coupe altered and am looking for a vintage wagon to tow it.

Another memory, we had a cottage about 6 hours away and upon closing the store Saturday evening, my sister and I would climb in the back and sleep as it was always after midnight when we arrived.

Warren

 

Not really a station wagon, but my dad had a 1949 Kaiser Vagabond (3 door, with fold down seats).

 

When my Dad got of the Marines we went from San Diego to South Dakota visit in a wagon of some kink, I was 5 and it was 1959 so a little rusty on what it was, but that was the start.
A wagon moved us to South Dakota in 1963
1962 Biscane wagon took us from SD to Oxnard in 1968 (Dad rejoined military)
1969 Ford Phoney Bark which had to be sold three months after purchase for overseas deployment..
Returned in 1972 he bought a chevy wagon
Later girl friend had a 1965 Rambler wagon, with the drop down front seat for the drive in nights
My wagons that came and went:
1963 Valiant
1962 Galaxy
1964 Chevelle
1965 Falcon
And now a 1954 Country Squire

 

LOOKING GOOD! BRUCE.

 

THANKS

 

I am an '80s/'90s kid and as such am on the tail end of "growing up riding in the back of a station wagon". Since I am an only child, we never really had the need for one.

I did grow up in the back of a (going backwards in time here) 38 chevy coupe, 32 ford highboy, a 40 chevy with a package shelf for a back seat, and I took my first ride in my dad's t-bucket at 2 weeks old.

My kids however, are growing up in the back of a station wagon, as I drive my 58 Ford Ranch Wagon on most days that end in "Y".

 

My family always had a wagon of some sort, seems as though they traded them every 3 years. 51, 54, 57 Country Sedans or Country Squires, then a Falcon in 1960. I remember our summer trips riding on top of a bed of luggage in the back with the back window open, probably breathed way to many fumes. In 1960 or 61 we took a trip to North Florida over New Years to the Gator Bowl in the Falcon with no heat as in South Florida we didn't need any heat. By the time we were 100 miles up the road we were scraping the ice off of the inside of the windshield. Learned on that trip that you needed a heater even if you are from South Florida.

 

No wagons in my family, but I spent a lot of time in the back of pickups, an FJ40 and long haul truck sleepers.

 

When Ford,Chevy and Dodge introduced small work vans the wagons fell from favor with the plumbers,carpenters,delivery people and general handymen as daily drivers.

Then the wagons were mostly used by housewives to shuffle kids around and family outings.

Mini vans drove a death nail in wagons and the number of company's manufacturing wagons slowly dwindled.

I honestly believe hot rodders are responsible for the resurgence of the station wagons as desirable transportation in recent years. HRP

 

I will ALWAYS remember our 1958 Plymouth station wagon. It was a color called Stardust Blue. It had the three seats with the rear-facing aft seat. I LOVED that car with it's pressed-pattern, stainless side trim on the fins and the rubber covered rear steps into the rear compartment. I can still smell the new vinyl....I can also remember that us five kids used to make dorky faces at the folks in the following cars and trucks through that big rear window. Just being goofy kids.

 

My first very early exposure to wagons was in the back of a late 60's Buick Estate wagon, dad's drag racing partner in crime and driver of the dragsters also owned Mid-County Buick in Brooklyn,NY and would usually grab a fully loaded wagon to tow the dragster all over the country...ahhh, simpler times!

Here's little teaser from a recent National Dragster:

 

All the mom's in the neighborhood had wagons. My favorite was Mrs. B and her 57 Chevy nomad! It was a very cool ride.

 

We had a 57 Ford wagon which I barely remember later had a 66 Dodge Polara wagon from about 68-73, later moved up to a Chevy Suburban.

 

Mom, Dad and us three kids took many vacations in a brand new 57 Plymouth Station Wagon, emerald green body white top. Mom drove that as a second car, as Dad always drove two door six cyl three speeds as an on the road salesman. The family drove the Plymouth for 10 years and in 67 Dad bought a slightly used 65 Ford Country Squire. That one lasted another 8 years and then the kids were gone. Many great memories riding in the back looking at the world with the windows down. Who knew about exhaust fumes?

 

Dad never drove and mom drove older Chevy sedans. My younger brother and I have many memories riding in the rear seat of everything from a 34 Chevy 4-door to 50's sedans. No one on either side of the family owned station wagon. Dad was a carpenter, handyman, and painter. he needed a wagon.
Way back in the 70's I nearly drug home a very early Star woody wagon from a field. It had writting on the sides of a sign painter's shop.
I got my first and only station wagon near the end of the 80's. Still have it. The 1955 red and white one in my avatar. In it's former life it belonged to a local plumber. Still had small pipe elbows and fittings here and there when I bought it from a hotrodder.
My wife does not drive and I don't trust my youngest son so I've never ridden in the back seat.
Well it only has the second seat so my memories of riding in a wagon back seat was our neighbor's 1950 Plymouth and then 1954 Plymouth. I don't believe either had a way back seat either. I enjoyed ridng back there to baseball games, picnics, and church with the neighbor boys and girls. Old man Elliot was a grouchy old cop but he knew how to keep us kids busy. Forgot those memories!
I pretty much like all station wagons and think they should make more today. Yes, we know what killed the station wagon and I've owned a few full sized vans of my own.

 

In the 60's, I remember a fawn beige '61 Impala wagon. Then in about 1970 dad got the '55 Nomad that I got back 20 yrs after he sold it. This pic is from about '74. So, I grew up in this one from age 8 till age 16. Learned how to drive a stick in it, as it had a 4sp. Used to play with my Hot Wheels in the back and saw AG at the drive-in when it came out. Many, many good memories.

 

After the family outgrew the 67` GTO it was station wagons for years, everything from a land barge dodge, to a pinto, a couple others I can`t remember. The last one was the 77`plymouth that I learned to drive in and eventually became my first car.
I wish my parents had some of the cool wagons I`ve seen on this thread, just born too late I guess.

 

My PawPaw had a early 60's Rambler station wagon that was his "fishing car". He always kept his cane poles tied to the door handles on the right side, so us kids always had to climb in the left side and crawl over.He drove that thing everywhere, it didnt bother him much that it was a rag...maybe that is where I inherited that from. . MawMaw had a nicer car that they drove anywhere nice.
Later, when I was 14 I got a job packing peaches for 3J farms. Miss June, one of the owners wives, had an old wagon that they had bought to go around and pick us kids up to haul us to work. I dont remember much about it, except it was a Chrysler product...it had that funky sound that the starter makes. The old AM radio worked, us kids would sing on the way to and from work. We werent even making minimum wage, we were making farm minimum wages, which were different....but we thought we were shitting in high cotton since we had our own spending money and didnt have to beg Daddy for money. I bought a new pair of overalls with my first paycheck, but I saved most of the money that year to buy a Honda XR75.
I had an Aunt that had a big old Mercury wagon in the mid 80's....she loved that thing, but all I could see was a Land Yacht...I'd much rather ride in the custom van they had.

 

I did ...1952 Pontiac 9 passengers , 11 family members from great north Quebec to Montreal...

 

Sorry!!! 1962 Pontiac Station wagon

 

1972 Buick Estate wagon with a 455 in it. Big ass motor. Car was forever overheating, but man could it get going if you needed it to. I broke both axles standing on the pedal at a light trying to race some guy when I was just a kid. The look on my face must have been hilarious because the other guys looked at me when they heard the bang and cracked up as they drove away. That was the last of a long line of wagons, every one of them with memories of fun and family, usually involving cousins, aunts and uncles. Really not a bad way to remember childhood at all, watching the people behind you from the rear facing seats with your sister and cousins all riding along, everybody just loving each others company.

Andy

 

I grew up in wagons... My mom got a new '53 Ford ranch wagon for Christmas in '53, another new one in '55 and my dad used the '53 for his work car. We didn't even own another sedan until about '65. Oh yeah, trips with the seat folded down and the 'car mattress' in the back. I've personally owned more than a few, my right-out-high-school ride was a '58 Ranch wagon with a built FE, a '52, '55, '56 (all Fords) and a '57 Chev (one of the very few Chevys I've owned). I still have a '56 Ranch wagon project in the shop that I should sell.

But they do have their dark side. My dad got in a wreck when somebody pulled in front of him and his toolbox flew forward and caved in the middle of the dash in his '55 Ford. Would have taken his head off if it hit him. A gal I knew was moving, got involved in a multi-car pileup on the freeway and her TV hit her in the head, knocked her out and she then crossed the median and hit an oncoming car, killing both occupants. Not really a good idea to haul large, heavy things in them...

It's also not a help when dating in your teens to pick up your date in a wagon with dark-tinted side windows... no matter how cool it looked... LOL. More than once I had to convince a mother that I was a 'nice young man'... LOLOL....

 

We had a 69 Pontiac wagon and later a 72 Ford wagon that was baby blue with the fake wood that looked exactly like the wood grain shelf liners that mom had in her kitchen cabinets.
The ford had the rear seats that folded up and faced one another.
The most fun we ever had though was when we took a trip in dads 69 Chevy truck with a cap. He put an old army cot and a lawn chair in the back and my brother and I thought that was the most wonderful way to travel.
We took a stack of magazines and a radio. The cap was the style where you removed the tailgate and the rear of the cap had a door with a window.
When we got bored one of us would lay on the floor and drop pennies out of the crack at the bottom of the door while the other would peek out of the window and try to call the shots (like what part of the car behind us they hit)
O the good old days.

 

My dad and my uncle bought new Chevy Impala wagons in '64, ours was white with blue interior and my aunt and uncles was blue on blue. Both had AC and we made several cross country trips in them and drug our flat bottom countless time to the river. I still have the original 250 hp 327 out of ours.
My uncle ordered his wagon with the 300 hp 327, 4 speed, posi rear end and of course the dash mounted tach. Be cool to have that today.

 

We had exactly one station wagon when we were growing up. In 1967 we traded in our rusty '56 Chevy 210 sedan for a used beige '63 Dodge 440 9-passenger wagon. I don't remember too much about riding in the back because we didn't have it long; late that year an old woman in a '62 Continental going the other way turned left against the light and our left front fender centerpunched her grille. Nobody hurt, and her insurance paid to fix it, but somebody put a bug in my dad's ear that unibody cars are never safe after they've been in even a minor accident. So we traded it in for a '65 Impala 4H. Too bad; that was a neat-looking Dodge - I wouldn't mind having another (I made up for it by getting a new Magnum back in '05).

 

Lots of wagon history in my family. From 59-67 my dad was a territory rep for a carpet manufacturer. His company wagons doubled as our family car along with mom's Beetle. The wagons spent most of the time loaded down with carpet samples, and got run hard, so the company replaced them every 50k miles. The reps ordered the cars local, and could drive any brand as long as it fit the company criteria and allowance.

With Dad that meant Ford's. he had new 61, 64, 65, & 67.
Through territory shuffles he also had 60, 61, & 63 Chevy's that he inherited at various times.

In 67 he bought a carpet store, and they needed a family wagon. Our neighbor was the Old's factory rep., and hooked them up to order a new Cutlass wagon. Just a basic one, since they had just bought the store, and were building a house.

He came over a few weeks later and said how would you like a new loaded Vista Cruiser? Dad says no, don't want to spend that much. How about if its less than the Cutlass? Ok, what's the catch?

Turns out the wife of a rep in another territory had ordered it, and decided she didn't like wagons. Nagged her husband to death, but Old's only replaced them every 6k miles. To shut her up they ran the miles from 400 up to 6050 with a drill, and sold it to my dad as a used executive vehicle. Worked for us!

The business came with a ratty 62 Chevy II wagon that Dad sold to a neighbor for $50. Later when business was better he bought a 69 Malibu wagon as the store car.

I would kill to have several of those wagons back. Seems like the view from my youth is out the back of a wagon.

 

I LOVE wagons! The only ones I had a chance to ride in were actually my Dad's company cars - mid-70's Ford full size wagons. He worked in the oilpatch and back then the idea of trucks as company field rep vehicles hadn't yet started so he got new wagons every year or so. He kept a heavy-duty sleeping bag in the back for emergencies so we would unroll that during family trips to lay on during the drive.

Once we used it to pickup some building supplies to build our garage (this would have been around '74/'75) - with the gate down, we were able to stack 4x8 sheets of plywood inside. With my brother riding shotgun, I was allowed to ride on top of the stacked sheets - good thing I was skinny! At one stoplight, when it turned green, Dad pulled away a bit too quickly and the top half dozen or so sheet of plywood slid out into the intersection with me riding the wave! Not a scratch but scared the hell out of me (and Dad too I think)!

Steve

 

Dad was always a Chevy wagon man. I remember riding in every seat of his cars. I can remember a '55, '57 (bronze & white), '59, '62 (first one with AC) '65, '67. We traveled the country racing go-carts & midgets. We were just an average family but you couldn't convince me we weren't the richest family in the 'hood.

 

My family never had a wagon. One of my aunts did and she got stuck with all the kids on multi family vacations. We drove her nuts. I don't remember the model but I believe it was a mid 60's Ford. I do remember her right hand making attempts to swat us on straightaways though. The journey is always better than the destination.

 

Not Hamb Friendly, but we had a 1974 Caprice Estate Wagon, Bronze Metallic with Nidoc wood grain, 6 Passenger Black Vinyl, full power options, power gate. Been looking for another for years. They only made 30K of the Caprice Estates that year. Passed my drivers test in that car. 20ft. In 81 the old man got a new Caprice Estate. Have a special spot for some long roofs!